Si Chen, a physicist with the X-ray Science Division (XSD) Microscopy Group at Argonne National Laboratory’s Advanced Photon Source (APS), is one of six Argonne researchers who have received FY 2021 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Early Career Research Program awards. The APS is a U.S. DOE Office of Science user facility.
Among other projects, Si Chen led the development of the Bionanoprobe, a hard x-ray scanning nanoprobe with cryogenic capabilities and the first instrument of its kind in the world. Her primary research interests and expertise lie in the areas of x-ray microscopy, cryogenic methods, instrumentation, and x-ray fluorescence data analysis. With colleagues at Argonne and collaborators from other institutions, Si has successfully applied advanced technologies to solve problems in a broad range of studies in the areas of biological, biomedical, environmental, and materials science. The DOE award will support Chen’s research in developing an innovative multiscale imaging platform that combines an x-ray nanoprobe and a plasma-focused ion beam. Chen’s research was selected for funding by DOE’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences.
“This award to Si Chen is extremely gratifying,” said Stephen Streiffer, Argonne Deputy Laboratory Director for Science & Technology and Interim Associate Laboratory Director for Photon Sciences, “not only because her body of work is so exceptional, but because Si and her colleagues are carrying out scientific investigations at the frontiers of a wide range of disciplines with great importance to our nation, as evidenced by this recognition from DOE.”
“All of us in XSD congratulate Si Chen on this important award,” said XSD Division Director Jonathan Lang. “Her work exemplifies the strengths of the scientific staff in XSD who tirelessly support our users while carrying out their own groundbreaking research.”
The other Argonne scientists selected for DOE Early Career Research Program awards are Corey Adams (Argonne Leadership Computing Facility), Melina Avila Coronado (Physics Division), Lindsey Bleem (assistant physicist at Argonne and a member of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago), Sheng Di (Mathematics and Computer Science Division), and Xueying Lu (Northern Illinois University and Argonne). The Argonne recipients are among 83 scientists nationwide to receive the coveted funding and recognition.
Now in its twelfth year, the DOE’s Early Career Research Program awards each recipient with at least $500,000 per year for five years to advance their research. A program of the DOE Office of Science, the award is intended to bolster the nation’s science workforce by providing financial support to exceptional researchers during their critical early-career years, when many create their most formative work.
The original Argonne news article by Kathryn Jandeska can be read here.
The Advanced Photon Source is a U.S. DOE Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.
The U.S. Department of Energy's APS is one of the world’s most productive x-ray light source facilities. Each year, the APS provides high-brightness x-ray beams to a diverse community of more than 5,000 researchers in materials science, chemistry, condensed matter physics, the life and environmental sciences, and applied research. Researchers using the APS produce over 2,000 publications each year detailing impactful discoveries, and solve more vital biological protein structures than users of any other x-ray light source research facility. APS x-rays are ideally suited for explorations of materials and biological structures; elemental distribution; chemical, magnetic, electronic states; and a wide range of technologically important engineering systems from batteries to fuel injector sprays, all of which are the foundations of our nation’s economic, technological, and physical well-being.
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